Windows 10 Home has the Windows Office Suite. Mostly, I want that for Word and Excel. I used Windows at work and at home for years and even when I switched to a Mac in 2008, I bought Office For Mac anyway. Mac's Pages and Numbers frustrated me with the lack of features. All the rest of the softawre will have to be purchased when I see what seems "missing.
I'm probably going to miss Mac's Finder and iPhoto software the most. And I've been using old versions of Photoshop Elements and some other Mac software because I trialed the newer versions and just didn't like them much. But since I'll be buying new Windows software and starting with the newest versions, I'll just have to learn those from scratch.
I've done the new software learning before. I started with a Commodore 64 in 1990, learned completely proprietary systems at work twice and then Windows after that. I was usually the quickest to figure out new office software . And as I said, a lot of Windows software is already familiar to me. I even still have my pre-2008 PC set up and use it occasionally.
I'm going to be migrating many of my Mac files to the PC myself. I suppose I could have most of that done by a local Windows shop, but those are the easy ones to transfer. I have an external drive and a couple of flash drives to make that easiest. Most of my word and spreadsheets are already in Windows format anyway. I'll take screenshots of my mail settings, but since my mail is messed up right now anyway (because of the forced Verizon-to-AOL transfer) I'll probably have to call them for help. My email receives, but won't send.
One good thing about switching back to a PC is that call centers usually know more about PCs than Macs. When I tell them I'm on a Mac, I can almost hear them cringe. And sometimes they just have to have someone call back who is more Mac-oriented. I won't miss that.
I'll be leaving the Mac set up on the internet, and setting up as much as I can on the PC offline. I think I'll buy as much new PC software on discs. One thing I learned is that having the initial discs is invaluable for re-installing apps when something goes wrong.
When I have my new file manager set up the way I like (I'm more detailed about that than most people - I have folders, subfolders, subsubfolders, LOL!) I'll copy the Mac files to it (Word, Excel, etc). Photos may take longer, and I suspect I'll have to buy a photo program first anyway.
So I actually may be remaining on Mac for a good week or so. And maybe I'll give Verizon another shot at fixing my Mac email.
Most of what I do these days are the 2 blogs and internet searches and those are working just fine. So you probably won't see any difference unless you sent an email and I can't reply to it. And maybe Verizon will fix that today...
UPDATE: Verizon says I have migrated my email from them and they can't help me any more. So I called AOL where the email was transferred to. They managed to ruin what the Verizon techs had set uptwhat DID work. And AOL basically said that unless I paid them (for the Verizon email that was formerly free) they didn't much want to talk to me. Never mind that Verizon said the transitioned email would be "free".
None of my 3 Mac mail accounts can receive OR can send. 3 days ago, I could receive to all three and send from 1. That's not an improvement. AOL made it so I can receive to one account and they say that is all I should expect, being a free customer.
Are some companies just "evil" or what?
They blame my Mac email, which was working perfectly fine until the migration to AOL.
The tech support people really do try to help. I don't doubt their desire to fix my problems in the least. But I think things have become complex beyond their ability to solve some problems.
In my case, it would take someone knowledgeable in Verizon, AOL, AND Mac to solve it. And there isn't such a person I can find.
I think my 3 Verizon accounts are doomed. I have cavebear2118@verizon.net for personal emails, marksmews2118@verizon.net for the cat blog, and yardenman2118@verizon.net for gardening.
I think I'll have to go to a paid email system to have several accounts, and it SURE won't be AOL. I'll have to see how the email works on the new PC..
Seriously annoyed right now.. I EXCPECT to solve most problems myself. Given some technical details like the name of an outgoing server, I usually can. But this 10 days of email problems is driving me mad. Which only makes me want to solve it more!
Part of my personality is persistence, learning, and determination. When that fails, I feel that *I* fail. I must not be understanding something. And that drives me nuts!
4 comments:
Well it all sounds very complicated to me, Mark, and I wish you the best of luck with it. And yes, I have a friend who's only ever used a Mac and he struggles to get competent help desk/technical support.
Annoying about the emails. I hope you're able to work something out very soon.
Megan
Sydney, Australia
I have to say I am happy with Pages. But too, I have had two programmer sons to tell me what's what. I don;t use it too often however. Help from Apple has always been great for me. I am sorry it seems otherwise for others. For you, I believe you were speaking of AOL..
Really, it shouldn't matter how or by what device you access AOL email. I'm not clear on why it should be anything different with Verizon's email either. All your email lives in the cloud; if you were to drop Verizon, for instance, you'd lose your mail (or, more accurately, access to it). It happened to me years ago when I had ATT and used an @att.com email address. I no longer use any email accounts associated with my internet provider; I just have AOL (2), Gmail (1) and Yahoo (1)(which I only set up to test client forms; I'm a web designer). They are all free and accessible from anywhere.
In any case, it seems to me that now the problem may lie with AOL. BUT...aside from the migration, I wonder how was Verizon able to "move" your @verizon.net addresses to @aol.com? If I were you, I'd see if Verizon can "restore" your email. (I'm thinking there must be some redundancy somewhere.) However, I might be missing something here in your post.
You may have to chalk it up to live and learn--and you might think about just setting up free mail at Gmail.
Well, I'm not storing anything in the Cloud. That might have something to do with it.
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